Tag: Teal Burrell

Without knowing why, when you meet Teal Burrell you quickly realize she’s just a little different from most elite runners. She’s a little more pensive than many of the women. A little more … something. Not insular, because she’s very friendly. Not introverted, because there are lots of elites who are introverted. Not intelligent, because a lot of elites are that too. There’s something about her that you can’t quite put your finger on, and it’s immediately intriguing.

Learning that she is a Ph.D. in neuroscience and an accomplished writer in the field helps to fill in some of the blanks; Teal is smart and it shows in the way she speaks. She’s thoughtful and careful with her words. For Teal, convention isn’t running with a team and it certainly isn’t media attention. In fact she can at times seem a little surprised to be where she is. In fact, by most standards she didn’t start out as anything special or even close to elite-status; her first marathon time was 4:07. But Teal’s own standards for herself are much, much higher than anyone else’s, and that has taken her far along the road to the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials in L.A. Read more >>